Exceptional Scaling, Confguration, and Reliability
What do you like best about the product?
Scaling and configuration and reliability
What do you dislike about the product?
Haproxy is pretty optiomized. I dont dislike anything.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Load balancing and routing
Supports flexible traffic routing and handles high request volumes with minimal overhead
What is our primary use case?
My main use case for HAProxy is as the Ingress controller for all my workloads sitting in Kubernetes, where anything entering from the public internet has to hit HAProxy first. HAProxy makes the weighted routing for blue-green deployments and also some sort of request and header-based routing to different environments and different applications or microservices in the Kubernetes clusters.
I used HAProxy mostly with the initial 1.5 or 1.6 Kubernetes clusters where it was the only solution compatible with NGINX, which I used for Kubernetes workloads and also for the monolithic architecture where the traffic comes from the external world, and we want to have a similar kind of configuration with a load balancer in place. I use the same HAProxy open source for on-premises to maintain similar toolsets, one from the commercial variant for the cloud and one for the on-premises variant.
A unique use case I would highlight is that initially, most API gateways or reverse proxies did not support all the functionalities we expect from an API gateway. For example, we needed rate limiting functionality not just on IP addresses but on a mix of multiple headers and content manipulations. I used HAProxy for rate limiting and integrated it with ModSecurity, our homegrown tool from open source, which we wanted to inline with HAProxy. Eventually, HAProxy introduced WAF functionality for web application filtering, where we configured certain rules for acceptance and content enrichment, ensuring that X-Forwarded-For requests were sent to downstream applications for visibility and effective issue triage. We wrote some plugins for HAProxy and received significant help from the HAProxy team to empower our WAF use cases over time.
What is most valuable?
In my experience, the best feature of HAProxy is its load balancing capabilities, as it provides various algorithms, stickiness, and configurations. I have extensively used HAProxy along with NGINX over the years and found its load balancing feature to stand out. Configuration management is easy once you are familiar with deploying it, but it is not flexible enough to allow complete configuration from the UI. I have not used HAProxy in the last three to four years, but previously, its UI perspective was lacking, requiring manual adjustments. Though configuration management is not a primary focus, load balancing definitely stands out in terms of feature set. Flexibility-wise, we centralized multiple environments with a single HAProxy deployment, and its ability to handle billions of events amazed me. However, while security features have replaced WAF functionality, they are limited for smaller organizations that do not need dedicated load balancers or WAF capabilities. Built-in capabilities provide a core advantage from a cost perspective, especially for those starting out, and I recommend exploring Terraform or Ansible for configuration management, though it is still in an outdated style.
HAProxy positively impacted our organization by exceeding scalability expectations, initially projected at 200k requests but ultimately handling over 15 million transactions per second without any issues. We assume it can handle beyond 1 billion transactions per second since we encountered no performance hiccups. In terms of reliability, we have not experienced significant issues, though reliability concerns can arise during configuration management reloads. Cost savings are notable for startups needing minimal feature sets across WAF, API gateway, and load balancer functions, making HAProxy a cost-effective foundational tool that can save more than $100k per year for users.
What needs improvement?
One needed feature for HAProxy is a more robust API Gateway, which still has limitations despite many validations for Kubernetes, especially around ease of use and persona-based designs for different user roles. The existing functionalities around load balancing do not focus enough on security or configuration management aspects. The reloading functionality is effective as it allows soft reloads without interrupting traffic patterns, but configuration management should improve significantly, especially concerning UI and GitOps principles for easier management. While RBAC is implemented, it is not sufficiently granular for controlling access privileges, which should improve over time for managing distinct features.
A significant area for improvement in HAProxy is its tenancy model; managing multiple environments can be challenging, especially with mergers, acquisitions, or domain changes. It lacks centralized management capabilities for uniform configuration templates across regions. The tool should allow smooth version transitions and facilitate zero-touch deployments to streamline operations.
Enhancements in tooling and integration with technologies like eBPF are crucial for HAProxy. The customer support aspect also requires improvement, as their SLA responses are often not immediate enough for users who depend on HAProxy as a primary tool. Documentation can be better, particularly regarding configuration templates and best practices that fit diverse requirements.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using HAProxy for almost four to five years during my career at Arista Networks and some portion at the Zeta as well, especially for the Kubernetes workload deployments from the marketplace.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
HAProxy is generally stable in my experience, though issues can arise during configuration management when changes are necessary.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
For scalability, HAProxy meets my needs, supporting our initial horizontal scaling and then adapting to vertical scaling in a VMware environment, utilizing Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA) for Kubernetes and Vertical Pod Autoscaler (VPA) for the VM deployments.
How are customer service and support?
My interactions with HAProxy's customer support were limited, but the feedback from my team indicated satisfactory service; however, SLAs were longer than our expectations.
How would you rate customer service and support?
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before HAProxy, I initially used NGINX and switched due to scaling and reliability needs, finding HAProxy more maintainable and user-friendly with better documentation.
How was the initial setup?
We purchased HAProxy via the AWS Marketplace, deploying it with our own methods using the provided Helm charts.
What was our ROI?
I estimate seeing a return on investment with HAProxy, as it significantly reduced staff requirements and enhanced scaling capabilities, particularly when transitioning from NGINX, which faced issues. Although HAProxy simplified the transition to Kubernetes, operational differences remained minimal over time.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
My experience with HAProxy's pricing was positive, though I do not remember the exact figures as it was a few years ago. The pricing remains competitive compared to other vendors, and the service is somewhat aligned with recent tooling developments, although pricing structures may require re-evaluation for future offerings.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
I considered NGINX during my selection process and also looked into Kong, which I find to be a robust API gateway with better functionality alongside Envoy.
What other advice do I have?
We measured transaction rates and cost savings by comparing alternatives like dedicated tools for WAF, such as Cloudflare WAF or AWS WAF, noting their costs and estimating a 30% to 40% saving. We evaluated metrics with Prometheus, analyzed through Grafana, and created custom metrics that confirmed our handling of requests without any performance issues during our scale-up period. Cost-wise, we determined HAProxy was a tool that could replace WAF, load balancer, and reverse proxy capabilities in a unified solution.
I would rate HAProxy an eight out of ten because of concerns around configuration management, the need for better management of multiple environments, a single source of truth, UI enhancements, and the potential for more frequent updates and support. Once these areas are improved, HAProxy could easily become a nine or ten out of ten.
My advice to new users is to pre-plan their intended feature use, clearly define limitations, and understand compatibility to avoid scalability issues. It is also crucial to benchmark in real-time environments. Overall, HAProxy is a great product; thorough evaluation is important to ensure that it meets user expectations before fully committing.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Hybrid Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Has simplified load distribution across services and centralized configuration management
What is our primary use case?
I have been using HAProxy for about a year.
My main use case for HAProxy is mostly forwarding public traffic into internal services over a Proxmox HA cluster. I get traffic from Keepalived VIP and forward it to HAProxy, and from there to internal services. I monitor and track port 80 and 443.
I am also using HAProxy for Redis and RabbitMQ traffic. I have three dedicated servers right now, with each server having one Redis node and one RabbitMQ node. Based on the traffic, for example, if an API is running on host one, HAProxy forwards traffic from this API host one to host one Redis node or RabbitMQ node one, internally making them use the same host to prevent latency.
What is most valuable?
The best features HAProxy offers for my setup are easy configuration, as I don't need to set up many things; I just installed it and write configurations based on my needs. Traffic flows easily, and it's easy to manage all the internal services in one place, in one file.
The configuration is easy for me because the syntax is straightforward; it's easy to catch paths and domains. It seems simpler than NGINX, and the load balancing is very good on HAProxy. The load balancing is easy on HAProxy, and I appreciate that.
HAProxy has positively impacted my organization by making it easier for me to manage configurations. I put configuration files on the Ceph storage shared across the whole cluster, allowing me to write my configuration, change it easily in one place, and reload it. I wrote a reload script that reloads all the configurations on all the cluster nodes, allowing them to run smoothly.
I don't know how much time I save, but it made my setup stable, which is the most positive aspect. There are months when I don't even touch it as long as I don't add a new service on my cluster.
What needs improvement?
HAProxy is very easy for me to use. I installed it easily and configured it after checking the documentation, which was clear. I wrote as described, and it worked well, but an easier desktop interface to connect to a remote server and make changes on my PC would be beneficial.
An alerting system would be better as I need to check log files if any backend is down. Integrated Telegram alerts or WhatsApp or different channels would make it better.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
HAProxy's scalability is easy for me as I'm using it on dedicated servers with a cluster, but I haven't used it for Kubernetes or any other cloud platforms, so I cannot comment on that.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
I was using NGINX before switching to HAProxy.
How was the initial setup?
Setting up HAProxy didn't cost anything for me.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
Setting up HAProxy didn't cost anything for me.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
Before choosing HAProxy, I discussed it with ChatGPT, found it convenient, tried it, tested it, and it was fine, so I didn't bother to try anything else.
What other advice do I have?
My advice to others looking into using HAProxy is to dive straight into it; there's nothing to lose and many things to gain. I would rate this product an 8.
Outstanding Performance and Excellent Support in an Open-Source Load Balancer
What do you like best about the product?
This open-source load balancer offers outstanding performance and comes with excellent support.
What do you dislike about the product?
One small suggestion I have is that it would be helpful if the configuration were available in a standardized format. This would make it much easier to create templates or automate the generation process.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
This is a highly scalable and efficient load balancer that offers a wide range of powerful features. Additionally, the WAF performs exceptionally well.
Easy Implementation and Outstanding Support from HAProxy Team
What do you like best about the product?
It is easy to implement and support. HAProxy Support (especially its Slack Channel) is excellent. They like our extended team to closely work with us.
What do you dislike about the product?
It will be helpful if we can version feature in haproxy config.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We just replaced F5 with HAProxy, It benefits us with cost reduction (e.g., F5 Support cost and the internal supporting costs). It will help us to support us the containerization in the future.
Powerful, Consistent, and User-Centric Solutions with Outstanding Support
What do you like best about the product?
HAProxy solutions are incredibly powerful tools. All have been build in a consistent way in order to achieve their purpose as efficiently as possible: provide visibility (logs), redundancy (loadbalancing), security (reverse-proxy).
The company mindset itself is incredibly user-centric, with an amazing support : whether I am facing an issue, raise a security concern or have an improvement suggestion, I always feel confident my voice will be heard, and in a very efficient way. This probably comes from the open-source mindset of the team!
What do you dislike about the product?
"Disliking" is a harsh word to describe the feeling I have here. Although I think this traces back to the DNA of the team, being rooted in open-source often underlines you get to have a lot of autonomy in understanding and configuring your solution : so I agree with other people here, it can be harsh at times to "get into" the configuration of the solution.
However, this difficulty is appeased by all the support the HAProxy team is able and willing to provide : it can be difficult at times, but I never feel lonely behind my laptop when I need to work on my infrastructure.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
HAProxy helps us adding more granularity in the way we expose our applications.
It has also given us a very efficient way to log the flows.
And also, with HAProxy we've been able provide a very strict frame to handle our server outgoing flows.
Stable, Versatile, and Backed by Excellent Support
What do you like best about the product?
- The stability of the product
- The wide range of possibilities
- The extremely good manufacturer support
- Centralized management
- Good documentation
- The diverse and long-standing community
- Feature requests are implemented quickly
What do you dislike about the product?
I have no points that I dislike about the product.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
HAProxy serves as a replacement for the previously used load balancer product NSX Advanced Load Balancer.
Reliable software and intuitive UI
What do you like best about the product?
The software stands out for its reliability and comprehensive nature. Moreover, the graphical interface is intuitive enough for easy handling. Installation, configuration, and integration are done very simply. Furthermore, customer support is responsive, allowing us to progress quickly. We use this tool daily, and the features offered meet our needs.
What do you dislike about the product?
No fine management of rights to give control over only a part
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
Haproxy, through our pair of aloha, allows us to balance the load on our datacenters and web servers in particular.
Reliable Performance and Support with Effortless DR Solutions
What do you like best about the product?
Good performance and reliability. Easy automated DR solutions. Good customer support. Very powerful.
What do you dislike about the product?
The Aloha appliance itself has very limited logging. Syslog server is required.
The configuration syntax is something to learn and can be complex at start.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
We operate two Aloha load balancers from HAProxy, each situated in separate server rooms as part of our disaster recovery setup. HAProxy securely and efficiently manages all API requests from our vending machines and customers to the backend. Additionally, it balances the traffic directed to our E-commerce platform, and all electronic communications between customer platforms and our SAP PO environment are also routed through HAProxy.
A great tool for your Enterprise proxy needs
What do you like best about the product?
This is a stable and highly configurable setup that can be adapted for a wide range of enterprise proxy solutions. Its flexibility makes it suitable for various business needs.
What do you dislike about the product?
Setting up advanced configurations can require some time to get everything just the way you want it.
What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?
By consolidating all our proxies, we are able to load balance our application servers and monitor everything from a single location. This approach streamlines our management process and makes it much easier to oversee server performance.
